Walnut Coffee Table With Coralwood Inlays

I found by chance a beautiful slice of walnut tree. Unfortunately, the seller could not tell me exactly how old the tree was when it was cut down. He only said that his great-grandmother had already climbed this tree. A beautiful piece of nature, perfect for a table. I hope I was able to showcase it properly. Have fun.

Supplies

• Cookie of walnut tree
• Chisel
• Router
• Router sledge
• Band saw
• Epoxy
• Drill
• Screws
• Lots ans lots of sandpaper
• Sander

Step 1: Preparing the Cookie

The walnut tree was cut down only a few weeks before I bought the wooden disc. Therefore, it was still very wet and I had to let it dry for over a year. In spring and summer I always put the cookie in the sun to speed up the drying. 

In the meantime I was able to remove the bark and all defects.

Step 2: Preparing the Inlays

Even when I bought the tree slice, I knew I had to use some bowties to stabilize it. Either you take a wood color that hardly stands out and is therefore inconspicuous, or you intentionally take a contrast to set the inlays in scene. I wanted a strong red for the bowties. After a short research I discovered the coralwood. Actually, the tree is called Pterocarpus soyauxii and comes from Africa (wiki link). Of course, I looked in advance to see if it was a protected tropical wood. The trade with coralwood is not forbidden. I found a reseller on the Internet who sends beautiful boards from special woods.

I marked the positions on the wood where I needed to insert a bowtie to keep the cookie stable. In total I needed eight bowties on top and eight on the bottom in three sizes.

I marked them out and cut them with the band saw.

Step 3: Flattening the Slab

I used my self build router sled to falten the slab from both sides to make the surfaces parallel to each other. After that I had a 10cm thick and totally parallel slab....and a big mess in my workshop :D

Step 4: Putting in the Inlays

Unfortunately I only took one picture in this process. It took a whole day to cut out all the 16 inlays. I marked all the bowties with a sharp cutting knife. I use my router to pre-route the holes and used sharp chisels to work out the negativ form of my bowties. They fit perfectly.

Step 5: Preparing and Pouring Epoxy

I used transparent epoxy to cover the whole surface of the wooden slab to to prevent penetration of the colored epoxy. When it was dried I build small "fences" using hot glue. I uses epoxy duct tape for the bottom and the sides. I secured the big cracks with a tension belt. The level helped me to make sure that everything is horizontal and the pouring would work perfectly. It took some days for drying out.

Step 6: Sanding, Sanding and Sanding

Well I can't even describe how long the sanding took. It took me that long to remove all the epoxy residue. But the worst were the router marks in the end grain. I must have sanded for half a day until all sides were smooth and clean. But it was totally with it :)

Step 7: Welding Some Support

I was a little nervous that over time more cracks might form in the wood. To prevent this, I wanted to put a ring of metal on the bottom. Unfortunately, metal rings of this size and thickness are very expensive. So I decided to build one myself. Well, building a round ring is difficult. Therefore I decided to build a hexagon.

I drew my shape on a piece of wood and used it as a template for welding.

After sanding I painted the ring black.

Step 8: Installing the Hardware

I bought some black metal legs from amazon. All I had to do is to insert some screw-in nut for the legs and insert the metal ring in to the base.

Step 9: Finishing

After so much work, the best comes at the end. I used wood oil as a finishing touch. I love it when the oil brings out the grain. The wood is just gorgeous. The colors harmonize very nicely together. It always takes my breath away how beautifully nature shapes the wood. This tree is certainly 100 years old. When I think about how much it has experienced and now it stands with us in the living room. It makes me sad that it had to be cut down. But I hope that I could still make the best of its fate with the table.

What do you think? Please let me know in the comments. Thanks :)